cover design layouts

Today I'm focussing on the really technical, IT-based book design aspects. I'm practising my use of Adobe InDesign and Photoshop and I've really been enjoying it. Here are some technical things I've learnt this week:

Standard Book Sizes: 

Picture Book - 240mm x 200mm

Paperback Fiction Book - 198mm x 129mm 

Hardback fiction - 216mm x 198

Terms

Some terminology commonly referred to during this aspect of production are:

• Bleed - a 5mm allowance along the outside of the cover, where no detail is printed. This protects against the cover being cut short. 
• Gutter - the mid-section of the cover, where the spine sits after printing.
• Turnaround - An allowance that allows extra space on a cover jacket for the flap to fold over easily.
• Board Allocation- on a hardback book, the card is sometimes 3mm thick. Designers allow for this during the design process, so the cover fits over the whole book.
• Slug area- on Indesign or Photoshop, the area between the bleed and 5mm above, where the fold lines are placed to indicate where production should cut the card. 

Here is an example of a picture book cover, laid out on InDesign and the cover created in Photoshop: 

And here is my attempt at a hardback cover jacket, I also designed a basic cover design on Photoshop but ran out of time to place the cover onto the file:

I will be sure to update you on my progress!